Are car parking fees a huge problem for UK workers?

British workers could be losing over 10% of their annual salary parking their cars near the workplace, according to new research commissioned by The Car People.

The Car People analysed the price of city centre car parks during 8:30am – 5:30pm across the country, to discover that the daily grind is leaving hard working Brits out of pocket.

The average Brit earns £27,0002 a year with an annual income of £21,639 after tax. Earning £416 a week Britons could be losing 11% of their weekly wage, paying out £44 on parking 15 minutes away from the city centre. Those earning minimum wage were found to be especially financially crippled by the daily commute, with daily parking fees resulting in a 14% loss of their £3003 weekly wage!

Unsurprisingly, The Car People’s research revealed London as the UK city with the most expensive city centre parking, costing an average of £218 a week and £11,375 a year – slashing London residents weekly wage4 (£521) by 42%.

London was followed by Oxford and Leeds as the most expensive cities centres for commuters to park. The average Oxford resident earns £442 a week5, which 35% is spent forking out £153 on city centre parking. Likewise, Leeds workers’ pay out a whopping £113 a week on parking, sacrificing 28% of their weekly wage6 (£403) to get to work.

Ely is home to the cheapest city centre parking in the UK, with residents sacrificing a mere 1.5% (£4.92) of their weekly wage (£338) to pay for parking. Stirling and Ripon were also found the be inexpensive cities for commuters to park, with residents losing a small fraction of their wage (2%7 and 2%8 respectively) compared to Londoners to park in the city centre.

Jonathan Allbones, Sales Director at The Car People said:

“We know how expensive inner-city parking can be, and luckily most of us further up north benefit from free parking at work, however for those less fortunate there are excellent ways to try find spaces cheaper such as parkonmydrive.com which could save you a lot! “